Year has passed since Newtown with no action on gun laws

Today marks the first anniversary of an unthinkable act. One year ago on the morning of Dec. 14, 20 first-graders and six adults were gunned down by 20-year-old Adam Lanza with more than 150 rounds from an AR-15 style Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The tragedy not only shook the small New England town, it shook the nation. Even those not related to the angelic victims were seared by the pain of such an horrific act. The nation was so shocked, efforts to prevent such an atrocity from ever again happening were escalated. Legislators who were formerly opposed to any form of gun control, changed their minds.

A bill requiring universal background checks for gun purchases was proposed by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. It also had the support of Pennsylvania’s other U.S. senator, Democrat Bob Casey. All three men formerly had earned high “grades” from the National Rifle Association. All three found the Sandy Hook massacre to be a reality check.

The bipartisan bill had strong support from Americans including nearly 90 percent of Pennsylvanians, but it failed to achieve the supermajority necessary for it to pass in the Senate last April.

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Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a seven-year-old bipartisan organization determined to see common sense gun legislation instituted in the United States, has stepped up its campaign since the Sandy Hook massacre including a stop last August in the city of Chester where most of the 21 homicides this year have been a result of gun violence.

Other groups including Americans for Responsible Solutions started by former Arizona congresswoman and gun owner Gabrielle Giffords who, herself, was critically injured in a massacre that killed six people in 2011, have kept the pressure on for background checks, improved mental health laws and the restoration of the nation’s assault weapon ban that federal legislators allowed to expire in 2004 after 10 years.

Nevertheless, no new federal laws have been passed to tighten gun control and the mass shootings continue a year after the public outrage over the Sandy Hook massacre.

• Six people were gunned down by an apparently disgruntled tenant July 26 at apartments in Hialeah, Fla. before he was killed by a SWAT team.

• On Aug. 5 in a small Pocono mountain town, three people attending a Ross Township supervisors meeting were killed by a man who reportedly retrieved his .44 Magnum revolver from his vehicle and opened fire because he was upset over the condemnation of his land.

• On the morning of Sept. 16, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, Aaron Alexis, a veteran of the Navy reserve who had worked on the Marine Corps and Navy intranet as an information technology contractor, opened fire at the Navy Sea Systems Command building at the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 people before he was fatally shot in a gun battle with police.

Loved ones of those killed at Sandy Hook have vowed to continue their campaign for tighter gun control laws, but for this first anniversary of the massacre, they have one request — that their privacy be observed. Instead of being caught in the glare of TV cameras, they wish to remember their lost loved ones quietly. They suggest sympathetic Americans light a candle, give to a charity or perform an act of kindness to honor those who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School a year ago.

This should also be a day of self-reckoning for federal lawmakers who haven’t had the guts to stand-up to the powerful gun lobbies, even in the wake of such heartbreaking carnage.